Saturday, October 7, 2017

Finally it’s happening. The motion of Nate is almost due north and that means the center will stay far enough to the east of NOLA that we will not see any major impacts inside the levee protection (risk reduction) system. In fact cloud tops showed a dramatic warming indicating some weakening in intensity. There has been a burst of storms on the north side of the center, but radar and satellite loops are showing a lop-sided storm with very little rain and winds on the west side with most of the high winds confined to the NE quadrant. The major impacts will stay east of the Pearl River with the center line forecast track now right over Gulfport. What I think has happened, and I mentioned this is a previous blog, is Nate is moving over cooler shelf waters away from the warmer, deeper oceanic heat content waters in the central & southern Gulf. That, coupled with his interaction with approaching land, should limit any further strengthening. In fact, Nate could start to weaken as he makes landfall? I’ve been switching back & forth between David on FOX 8 & the LSU game, but it sure appears to me that we(metro NOLA) will escape any major power outages as winds should not be much higher than 30-40 mph. When will that happen? According to a graphic David just showed, we’ll ramp up after 7 PM, stay in the 20-35 mph range thru midnight and fall off to under 10 mph by daybreak. Those of you up in Picayune/Poplarville will get more wind than those of us here in NOLA. I’m really encouraged by the recent changes than suggest we’ll miss another one. I’ll have another update after 10 PM unless there is a major change in my thinking. Stay tuned!